Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a participant or observer in the following events:

The masthead for the March 7, 1939 issue of ‘Liberation,’ a magazine published by the ‘Silver Shirts.’ [Source: Georgetown Bookshop]White supremacist and ardent Nazi follower William Dudley Pelley, a New England native of what he calls “uncontaminated English stock,” founds the Silver Shirts, a neo-Nazi organization, in Asheville, North Carolina, the same day that Adolf Hitler ascends to power in Germany. Apparently Pelley funds the organization through the proceeds of a best-selling book, Seven Minutes in Eternity, in which he claimed to have died and gone to “the beyond” for a seven-minute period. Pelley and his followers, including Henry Lamont “Mike” Beach (see 1969), dress themselves in silver shirts emblazoned with a large cursive “L,” blue corduroy knickers, and gold stockings. Pelley considers himself a Republican, though he is not politically active in the usual sense. Anti-Semitic, Anti-Government - His efforts attract members from pro-Nazi groups, Ku Klux Klan chapters, and others sympathetic to his anti-Semitic views. In August 1933, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) will warn: “The Silver Shirts came into existence the early part of this year. They are enrolling white Protestant Christians as members of a Christian militia, through a plan of State encampments that are reported to extend into various states of the Union, with posts in every community.” According to Silver Shirt documents obtained by the AJC, the group intends to bring about the establishment of a strictly Christian government in the US; accuses President Roosevelt of being a “dictator” and “set[ting] aside the Constitution, which they desire to restore”; intends to “save [the] United States from a state of Sovietism into which… the Jews are leading the country”; accuses Jews of being a “money power” bent on destroying the nation’s economy via their “control” of the Federal Reserve; and says that “a people who constitute only 2.5 per cent of the population [Jews] to be held down to a 2.5 per cent influence in the American government, and we propose to see that it is brought about, race prejudice or no!” The group also advocates a form of direct democracy, in which citizens mail in their votes for or against pending legislation, and proposes the reorganization of America into what it calls a “colossus corporation,” where “[e]very citizen shall be both a common and a preferred stockholder.” Psychic Messages - Pelley claims to receive psychic messages from “the vastness of cosmos,” including two sets of documents, the “Esoteric Doctrines of the Liberation Enlightenment” and the “Liberation Scripts,” which set forth the “Christ government” he intends to establish. In a Silver Shirt newsletter, Pelley writes: “It is the order of things that those wicked and malignant spirits who have incarnated in certain sections of the Hebrew race trying to bring the downfall of the Christ Peoples, should meet a fearful fate in this closing of the Cycle of Cosmic Event. That contest is on-the-make and Hitler’s job it has been to do the advance work. But Hitler is not going to finish that work. THE FINISH OF IT COMES RIGHT HERE IN AMERICA!” Pelley writes that “the Jew” is possessed of a “nomadic character, making him an internationalist whose ultimate objectives may well mean the destruction and disappearance of the United States.” [American Jewish Committee, 8/24/1933; Ian Geldard, 2/19/1995; David Neiwert, 6/17/2003]Spike in Membership Will Dwindle - Pelley’s group will enjoy its largest membership of some 15,000 in 1934; four years later, the group will dwindle to around 5,000 members. [The Holocaust Chronicle, 2009] Pelley will be convicted of sedition in 1942, and by the time he emerges from prison in 1950, his Silver Shirts will have long since disappeared. 'Christian Fascist' - In the early 1980s, graduate student Karen Hoppes will write extensively about Pelley. She will write of his Christian fundamentalism: “[T]he link with fundamental Christianity establishes the uniqueness of American fascism. The majority of fascist groups justified their existence by their desire to change the United States into a Christian society.… The relationship between the religious identity of these groups and their political demands can be shown by a careful survey of their rhetoric. The Christian fascist does not distinguish between the application of the terms anti-Christ, Jew, and Communist. Neither does he distinguish between Gentile and Christian.” [David Neiwert, 6/17/2003]

Portion of a 1955 cartoon warning against the evils of three government health programs, including water fluoridation. [Source: Spectator]As World War II is coming to a close, the US Public Health Service (USPHS) begins a pilot program in Michigan to add fluoride to selected cities’ water supply, as a tooth-decay preventative. By 1950, 87 American towns and cities volunteer to have the agency fluoridate their water supply. By the early 1950s, water fluoridation is compulsory. Studies show that children between the ages of 5 and 9 show significantly smaller rates of cavities and tooth decay when they regularly drink fluoridated water, though studies of older children and adults are less clear. As the federal government begins rolling out its mandatory fluoridation program, far-right organizations such as the John Birch Society (JBS—see March 10, 1961 and December 2011) and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) begin taking rigid stances against it. The JBS, a staunchly anti-Communist organization, accuses the federal government of imposing “creeping socialism” and “Soviet Communism” on the nation by making fluoridated water mandatory, and warns Americans against the government “polluting our precious bodily fluids.” (In 1993, JBS member Murray N. Rothbard differentiates between the brands of communism at work, saying, “[N]o, not Bolsheviks, guys: but a Menshevik-State Capitalist alliance.”) The JBS, in accusations later echoed by Rothbard, accuses the government of working with aluminum manufacturer Alcoa to dump sodium fluoride, a byproduct of aluminum manufacturing, into the nation’s water supply and rid Alcoa of the cost of disposing of the substance. The 1964 satirical film Dr. Strangelove features a character, General Jack D. Ripper, shouting, “Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?” [New American, 1/1993; Reason, 12/5/2001; Hileman, 5/2008] In 1988, the Fluoride Action Network notes that the two opposing camps—fluoridation is beneficial and has no side effects vs. fluoridation is useless and harmful—have fought to an argumentative standstill, with no middle ground between the two. Jacqueline Warren, an attorney with the National Resources Defense Council, says, “Neither side has given the other one rational moment.” [Hileman, 5/2008] In the early 1990s, environmentalist and public health safety groups begin calling for new examinations of the impact of fluoride on the human body, pointing to “valid concerns” about fluoride having a toxic impact on the human body and on the environment. In 2008, one JBS member warns, perhaps sardonically, “Don’t be surprised if we learn soon that the fluoride in Chinese toothpaste is nuclear waste from North Korea.” [Reason, 12/5/2001; Mother Jones, 5/2008]

A federal court invalidates South Carolina’s effort to save its whites-only primary elections (see April 1, 1946). South Carolina attempted to remove federal court jurisdiction from its primaries, and save its discriminatory primary system, by repealing all of its primary laws. However, the court ruling in Elmore v. Rice invalidates the whites-only system. George Elmore, one of the plaintiffs in the case, is an African-American elector forbidden by South Carolina law from voting in the Democratic primary election. NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall is one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs. [ELMORE v. RICE, 2010; American Civil Liberties Union, 2012] Elmore and his family are persecuted by members of the Ku Klux Klan after the ruling. [South Carolina African American History Calendar, 2007 ]

One of a number of semi-official ‘Christian Identity’ logos. [Source: KingIdentity (.com)]The “Christian Identity” theology, formerly a fairly benign expression of what is known as “British-Israelism” or “Anglo-Israelism,” begins to spread throughout the US and Canada, particularly on the west coasts of these nations. This belief holds that white Americans and Canadians are the real descendants of the Biblical tribes of Israel. In 2003, author Nicole Nichols, an expert on far-right racist and religious groups in America, will define the concept of “Christian Identity” as practiced by many white supremacist and separatist groups. Christian Identity is not an organization, she will write, but an ideology that many organizations have adopted in some form or fashion. Christian Identity “elevates white supremacy and separatism to a Godly ideal,” she will write, calling it “the ideological fuel that fires much of the activity of the racist far right.” According to Christian Identity theology, Jews are neither the “true Israelites” nor the true “chosen people” of God; instead, Christian Identity proponents claim, Jews are descended from an Asiatic people known as the Khazars, who settled near the Black Sea during the Middle Ages. [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005; Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 5/30/2006] In 2005, the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance will write, “Followers tend to be involved in political movements opposing gun control, equal rights to gays and lesbians, and militia movements,” and quote Michael Barkun, an expert on radical-right groups, as saying, “This virulent racist and anti-Semitic theology… is prevalent among many right-wing extremist groups and has been called the ‘glue’ of the racist right.” [Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 5/30/2006]Beginnings; 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' - In the 1920s, William J. Cameron, editor of the Dearborn Independent weekly newspaper, popularized the anti-Semitic hoax manuscript called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which purported to detail the “secret teachings” of Judaism, including the planned takeover of the world’s governments, the subjugation of non-Semitic races, and the bizarre, cannibalistic rituals supposedly practiced by Jews. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Wesley Swift and 'Mud People' - In the 1940s, a former Methodist minister, Wesley Swift, started his own church, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. Swift had deep ties to a number of radical right-wing groups including the Ku Klux Klan; Swift and his associates set the stage for the mutation of the Christian Identity into a loosely organized set of virulently anti-Semitic, racist belief systems that will come to be grouped together under the “Christian Identity” rubric. Swift himself taught that only the white race was created in the form of God, while Asian and African races were created from the “beasts of the fields,” and thusly are subhuman creations. In Swift’s version of Genesis, Eve, the wife of the first “true” man Adam, was seduced by The Serpent, who masqeueraded as a white man. Eve bore a son, Cain, who is the actual father of the Jewish people. This reinterpretation, sometimes called the “two-seed” or “seedliner” theory, supports the Christian Identity propensity to demonize Jews, whom Swift and others labeled the “spawn of Satan.” Today’s white Europeans and their American and Canadian descendants, Swift taught, are descended from the “true son” of Adam and Eve, Abel, and are the actual “chosen people” of God. Some Christian Identity adherents go even farther, claiming that subhuman “pre-Adamic” races existed and “spawned” the non-white races of the world, which they label “mud people.” [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Permeates Racist, Far-Right Groups - By the 1960s, a new group of Christian Identity leaders emerges to spread the Identity theology through the radical, racist right in America and Canada, popularizing the once-obscure ideology. Most prominent among them are three disciples of Swift: James K. Warner, William Potter Gale, and Richard Butler. Warner, who will move to Louisiana and play a leading role in the fight against civil rights, founds the Christian Defense League and the New Christian Crusade Church. Gale, an early leader of the Christian Defense League and its paramilitary arm, the California Rangers, goes on to found the Posse Comitatus (see 1969), the group that will help bring about the sovereign citizen movement. Gale will later found the Committee of the States and serve as the “chief of staff” of its “unorganized militia.” Butler moves Swift’s Church of Jesus Christ Christian to Idaho and recasts it as the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s). Under the leadership of Butler, Gale, Warner, and others, Christian Identity soon permeates most of the major far-right movements, including the Klan and a racist “skinhead” organization known as the Hammerskins. It also penetrates many extreme anti-government activist groups. The Anti-Defamation League will write, “The resurgence of right-wing extremism in the 1990s following the Ruby Ridge (see August 31, 1992) and Waco standoffs (see April 19, 1993) further spread Identity beliefs.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2005] Nichols will write: “Christian Identity enclaves provide a trail of safe havens for movement activists, stretching from Hayden Lake in northern Idaho (the Aryan Nations stronghold) to Elohim City on the Oklahoma/Arkansas border (see 1973 and After). Many white supremacists on the run from federal authorities have found shelter and support from Christian Identity followers.” Some organizations such as the Montana Militia are headed by Identity adherents, but do not as a group promote the theology. [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Bringing Forth the Apocalypse - Many Christian Identity adherents believe that the Biblical Apocalypse—the end of the world as it is currently known and the final ascendancy of select Christians over all others—is coming soon. Unlike some Christians, Identity adherents do not generally believe in the “rapture,” or the ascendancy of “saved” Christians to Heaven before the Apocalypse ensues; instead, Identity followers believe Jesus Christ will return to Earth only after the time of the “Tribulation,” a great battle between good and evil, which will set the stage for the return of Christ and the final transformation of the world. Identity followers believe it is their duty to prepare for the Apocalypse, and some believe it is their duty to help bring it about. They tend to cast the Apocalypse in racial terms—whites vs. nonwhites. Identity adherents believe that worldly institutions will collapse during the “end times,” and therefore tend to distrust such institutions, making Identity theology appealing to anti-government ideologies of groups such as militia, “Patriot,” and sovereign citizens groups. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]21st Century Identity - In the 21st century, Christian Identity groups are strongest in the Pacific Northwest of America and Canada, and the US Midwest, though Identity churches can be found throughout the US and in other parts of Canada. Identity churches also exist in, among other nations, Ireland, Great Britain, Australia, and South Africa (see June 25, 2003). The Anti-Defamation League will write: “Yet while spread far it is also spread thin. Estimates of the total number of believers in North America vary from a low of 25,000 to a high of 50,000; the true number is probably closer to the low end of the scale. Given this relatively small following, its extensive penetration of the far right is all the more remarkable.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Identity Violence - Identity adherents commit a number of violent acts, often against government and/or financial institutions, in an outsized proportion to their small numbers. In 1983, Identity adherent Gordon Kahl kills two US Marshals who attempt to arrest him on a parole violation, and kills an Arkansas sheriff before finally being gunned down by authorities (see February 13, 1983 and After). The white supremacist terrorist group The Order (see Late September 1983) contains a number of Identity members, including David Tate, who kills a Missouri Highway Patrol officer while attempting to flee to an Identity survivalist compound (see April 15, 1985). During the 1980s, small Identity groups such as The New Order (or The Order II) and the Arizona Patriots commit bombings and armored car robberies. After the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), Identity minister Willie Ray Lampley attempts a number of bombings (see November 9, 1995). In 1996, the Montana Freeman, led by Identity members, “stands off” federal authorities for 81 days (see March 25, 1996). Between 1996 and 1998, Eric Robert Rudolph, who has connections to Identity ministers such as Nord Davis and Dan Gayman, bombs an Atlanta gay bar (see February 21, 1997), several abortion clinics (see October 14, 1998), and the Atlanta Summer Olympics (see July 27, 1996 and After). In 1999, Identity member and former Aryan Nations security guard Buford Furrow goes on a shooting spree at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles (see August 10, 1999). [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]

Deputy Cecil Price and Sheriff Lawrence Rainey lounge in the courtroom during a hearing on charges brought against them in the murders of three civil rights workers. Rainey is chewing tobacco. [Source: University of Missouri-Kansas City]A federal grand jury in Jackson, Mississippi, indicts 19 Ku Klux Klan members and others for the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers, James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. The indictments mark the first time in Mississippi history that white men have faced serious charges for committing race-related crimes. Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price will be sentenced to six years in jail. KKK leader Sam Bowers and KKK member Wayne Roberts will receive 10 years apiece. [American Civil Liberties Union, 2012] Investigators conclude that Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi, instigated the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner. Klan members had attempted to kidnap Schwerner on June 16, 1964, but when they were unable to find him, instead set fire to a black church and systematically beat a group of black churchgoers. Schwerner, along with Chaney and Goodman, were in Ohio at the time and returned to Mississippi after hearing of the incident. Both Price and his superior, Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence Rainey, are members of the KKK, and have a reputation for being “tough” on blacks, and officials of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the organization that sponsors the three civil rights workers, were worried about their safety. On June 21, while asking about the fire and the beatings, the three workers were notified that a group of white men was looking for them. They were arrested by Price while driving to the CORE offices in Meridian, allegedly on suspicion of being involved in the church arson, and taken to the Neshoba County jail. Price met with KKK recruiter (kleagle) Edgar Ray Killen to discuss what to do with the three. Price and the other police officers pretended to release the three, and let them drive away, but Price followed them in his police cruiser. Price pulled the car carrying the three over, placed them in his police cruiser, and drove them down a lonely dirt road, followed by at least a dozen Klan members. The three were beaten by the various Klan members, then shot to death by Klan member Wayne Roberts. The bodies were taken to a dam site at a nearby farm and buried under tons of dirt by earthmoving equipment. It is almost certain that Price informed Rainey of the murders and the burials upon returning to his office. Justice Department and FBI agents began investigating the disappearance of the three workers (giving the case the name “Mississippi Burning,” or MIBURN), and soon found the burned-out hulk of the station wagon driven by Chaney during the three’s final moments. Federal agents found it difficult to find witnesses willing to talk, but FBI agent John Proctor found that children were often knowledgeable and willing to speak in return for candy. A $30,000 reward offering led agents to the buried bodies. Informants from within the Klan itself finally broke open the case, particularly John Jordan, a Meridian speakeasy owner who cooperated with agents rather than face a long prison term. In December 1964, 19 men, including Price, Bowers, Roberts, and Killen, were arrested and charged under Mississippi law. Initially, a US commissioner threw out all of the charges against the 19, claiming that no evidence linked them to the crimes, but the 19 will be charged under federal laws instead. Segregationist Judge William Harold Cox will again dismiss the charges against all but Rainey and Price, but the US Supreme Court will reinstate the charges in February 1966. Cox will impose the extraordinarily lenient sentences, and will later say, “They killed one n_gger, one Jew, and a white man—I gave them all what I thought they deserved.” Price will only serve four years of his sentence before rejoining his family in Philadelphia, Mississippi. In 1999, Mississippi will reopen the investigation, and in 2005 will reindict Killen, who escaped conviction in the first trial because of the jury’s refusal to “convict a preacher.” Killen will be sentenced to 60 years in jail on three counts of manslaughter. [Douglas O. Linder, 2005]

Joseph Paul Franklin. [Source: Jackson Clarion Ledger]Joseph Paul Franklin, a resident of Memphis, Tennessee, confesses to attempting to kill Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, and civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. Franklin’s motives are, according to his own statements, frankly racist. He admits to having been a member of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, a former believer in the Christian Identity theology (see 1960s and After), and for a long time considered himself a Nazi. On March 6, 1978, he shot Flynt outside a Georgia courtroom, paralyzing the publisher for life. On May 29, 1980, he shot and severely injured Jordan outside a Fort Wayne, Indiana, Marriott hotel. Franklin says he tried to kill Flynt because he published photographs of a racially mixed couple having simulated sex. He says he shot Jordan, an African-American, because he saw him with a white woman. From 1977 through 1980, Franklin says, he embarked on a “mission” to rid America of blacks, Jews, and whites who like minorities. He claims the credit for robbing a number of banks, bombing a Tennessee synagogue, killing two black men in Utah who were jogging with white women, and shooting a black man and white woman as they left a Tennessee restaurant. In total, Franklin says he may have killed 20 people in a 10-state, racially motivated shooting spree; when asked how many he’d killed, he says, “Not nearly enough.” Franklin explains why he shot so many people: “I was trying to start a race war at the time.… I figured other whites would do it, too, and eventually we’d have a full-fledged race war.” He says that in 1977 he went on the “warpath. I decided to cut loose in 1977. I was working these dead-end jobs. I thought, ‘I’m just going to go out and kill some Jews.’” Franklin says he was inspired in part by convicted serial killer Charles Manson. He is convicted of a number of crimes, including the 1977 murder of Missouri resident Gerald Gordon, and sentenced to death for Gordon’s murder. During his murder trial, Franklin calmly explains the length he went to to avoid detection: buying a rifle in Dallas through a classified ad, filing off the serial number, and carrying it in a guitar case; finding synagogues in the Yellow Pages, using a bicycle to approach and leave the scenes of his crimes quickly and without detection; and using a police scanner to keep abreast of law enforcement activities. He tells the court that he has no regrets regarding any of his crimes: asked if he feels remorse for any of his actions, he says: “I can’t say that I do. The only thing I’m sorry about is that it’s not legal.” Asked, “What’s not legal?” he replies, “Killing Jews.” Psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis, who has interviewed a large number of serial killers and spree killers, testifies that Franklin is a paranoid schizophrenic, details the brutal physical abuse he suffered as a child, and details a number of bizarre beliefs he seems to hold. Franklin denies being “stark raving mad,” but admits to a few “minor neuroses.” As to Lewis’s contention that he was unable to stop himself from committing his crimes, Franklin says: “I think it is hogwash, to tell you the truth. I knew exactly what I was doing.” Lewis later says she believes all serial and spree killers are mentally or emotionally dysfunctional and not directly responsible for their actions. [Time, 11/16/1980; New Yorker, 2/24/1997; Jackson Clarion Ledger, 2/25/2010] The 1989 novel Hunter, by William Pierce, the author of the infamous Turner Diaries (see 1978), will be dedicated to Franklin. The main character of the novel kills interracial couples in an attempt to foment a race war. [New York Times, 7/24/2002] The racist, white supremacist group Aryan Nations will give Franklin a medal for his actions. [Jackson Clarion Ledger, 2/25/2010]

Douglas Bay, Dominica. [Source: Happy Tellus (.com)]Two of three mercenaries accused of plotting to overthrow the government of the tiny Caribbean island nation of Dominica are found guilty of conspiracy and violation of the Neutrality Act. Stephen Don Black, a prominent Alabama Ku Klux Klan leader, and Joe Daniel Hawkins, a Klansman from Mississippi, are found guilty of the charges. Both are found not guilty of violating five firearms statutes. The plot began in 1979, when the neighboring island country of Grenada was taken over by a socialist regime with ties to the Communist government of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Mike Perdue, a former Marine and prominent white supremacist, discussed retaking Grenada with ousted former Prime Minister Eric Gairy. Perdue sought out Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke, who put him in touch with white supremacist Donald Clarke Andrews, then living in Canada. Andrews had led the white supremacist group Western Guard, and after serving a jail sentence for neo-Nazi activities, founded a new pro-Aryan group, the Nationalist Party of Canada. Andrews convinced Perdue that Dominica might be a good place from which to stage a coup in Grenada. Dominica was in the grip of grinding poverty, having been devastated by a hurricane in 1979 and plagued with racial violence from a splinter group of Rastafarians called the Dreads. The island’s government was unstable and, Perdue and Andrews believed, ripe for overthrow. Perdue partnered with another supremacist, Wolfgang Droege, and began planning to stage a coup that would place former Prime Minister Patrick John back in power. Even though John was something of a leftist, and wanted to displace the much more right-wing and pro-American Prime Minister, Eugenia Charles, in September 1980 Perdue and John agreed in writing to commence what they called “Operation Red Dog,” a violent coup with the goal of placing John back in charge of the government. The Washington Times will later report: “The coup forged some odd alliances. [It] united right-wing North Americans and Caribbean leftists, white nationalists and black revolutionaries; First World capitalists and Third World Socialists.” Canadian writer Stewart Bell later describes Perdue as a man of no real political convictions and a lust for money who routinely lies about his Vietnam experience (he never served in Southeast Asia, and did not tell his companions that he was a homosexual), and Droege as a German-Canadian high school dropout with neo-Nazi sympathies. Others involved in the putative coup are nightclub owner and white supremacist Charles Yanover, gunrunner Sydney Burnett-Alleyne (who supplied the initial connection to John), Black, Hawkins, and a small number of others. The mercenaries’ plan was to put John back in power; in return, John would give them license to use the island as a haven for casinos, drug smuggling, and money laundering. Almost from the outset, the conspiracy was infiltrated by two agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), John Osburg and Wally Grafton, who were alerted to the planned coup by charter boat captain Mike Howell. Perdue had tried to hire Howell to take the mercenaries to Dominica, and told Howell that his was a CIA operation. Members of the operation also talked to others about it; one even gave a “secret” interview to a radio reporter in Hamilton. Osburg and Grafton alerted law enforcement authorities; on the night of the raid, federal authorities overwhelmed the small band of mercenaries, arrested them all, and confiscated a large number of firearms, 10 pounds of dynamite, over 5,000 rounds of ammunition, and a large red-and-black Nazi flag. The operation was later derisively termed the “Bayou of Pigs,” a joking reference to the 1961 attempt by right-wing American mercenaries to overthrow Castro’s government. John was arrested in Dominica. Perdue and six other participants have already pled guilty to violating the Neutrality Act. Before his sentencing of three years in prison, Black says, “What we were doing was in the best interests of the United States and its security in the hemisphere, and we feel betrayed by our own government.” [Time, 5/11/1981; United Press International, 6/21/1981; New Times, 2/19/1998; Washington Times, 10/5/2008; Winnipeg Free Press, 11/2/2008] After serving his jail term, Black will go on to found the influential white supremacist organization Stormfront (see March 1995 and June 22, 2008).

Timothy McVeigh, a nascent white supremacist and survivalist (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990) who is in the process of taking “early termination” from the US Army after being denied a position in Special Forces (see January - March 1991 and After), moves back in with his father in Pendleton, New York. Initially, he joins a National Guard unit and tries unsuccessfully to join the US Marshals. He is formally discharged from the Army on December 31, 1991. His final psychological assessment from the Army shows him to be under extreme stress and experiencing a powerful sense of disillusionment with the federal government. In January 1992, he goes to work for Burns International Security Services in Buffalo after leaving the Guard (see June 1992), and quickly rises to the rank of inspector. [New York Times, 5/4/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 810; Serrano, 1998, pp. 48; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; CNN, 2001; CNN, 12/17/2007] (A New York Times report later says McVeigh leaves the Army in early 1992. A book about McVeigh, One of Ours, claims that McVeigh returns to Pendleton after leaving the Army around Christmas of 1991.) [New York Times, 5/4/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 44]Depressed, Suicidal, Detached, Enraged - Over time, McVeigh becomes increasingly depressed and reportedly considers suicide; friends and colleagues will describe him as deteriorating both mentally and physically, and, in the words of the New York Times, will describe him as “an increasingly unstable man who wavered between gloomy silences and a hair-trigger temper, who lost so much weight he seemed anorexic, and who could follow simple orders but could not handle pressure or take independent action.” Lynda Haner-Mele, a supervisor for Burns Security in Kenmore, New York, later recalls working with McVeigh at the Niagara Falls Convention Center. She remembers calling him “Timmy” and worrying about his weight loss. “He seemed almost lost, like he hadn’t really grown up yet,” she will say. She is unaware of his Army service, later recalling: “He didn’t really carry himself like he came out of the military. He didn’t stand tall with his shoulders back. He was kind of slumped over.… That guy did not have an expression 99 percent of the time. He was cold. He didn’t want to have to deal with people or pressure. Timmy was a good guard, always there prompt, clean, and neat. His only quirk was that he couldn’t deal with people. If someone didn’t cooperate with him, he would start yelling at them, become verbally aggressive. He could be set off easily. He was quiet, but it didn’t take much.” Increasingly Radicalized - McVeigh becomes increasingly radicalized, growing more disenchanted with the idea of a federal government and distressed about the possibility of a federal crackdown on gun ownership. He talks about the government forcibly confiscating the citizenry’s guns and enslaving citizens. He writes angry letters to newspapers and his congressman on subjects such as his objection to inhumane slaughterhouses and a proposed law prohibiting the possession of “noxious substances,” and warns against an impending dictatorship if action is not soon taken (see February 11, 1992). He urges friends to read a novel, The Turner Diaries (see 1978), which tells the story of a white supremacist revolt against the US government and the extermination of minorities, and gives copies to his friends and relatives. He begins acquiring an arsenal of guns, and sets up a generator and a store of canned food and potable water in his basement so that he would be self-sufficient in case of emergency. He applies to join the Ku Klux Klan, but decides against it because, he believes, the KKK is too focused on race and not enough on gun rights. The Times will later write: “While there was no firm evidence that Mr. McVeigh belonged to any organized right-wing paramilitary or survivalist groups, there was considerable evidence that he sympathized with and espoused their beliefs. He voiced their ideas in conversations, he wrote letters expressing them, he read their literature, and attended their meetings. And he lived, worked, and traded weapons in areas where the paramilitary groups enjoy considerable support, according to numerous interviews.” In the summer of 1992, McVeigh moves to Michigan to stay with his old Army friend Terry Nichols, telling friends he is leaving to find a “free state” in which to live. McVeigh’s and Nichols’s shared hatred of the federal government continues to grow. [New York Times, 5/4/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 810; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; CNN, 2001; Douglas O. Linder, 2006; CNN, 12/17/2007] Reportedly, McVeigh tells people that the Army has placed a computer chip in his buttocks to keep him under surveillance. [People, 5/8/1995] McVeigh’s fellow security guard, Carl Edward Lebron Jr., later recalls long conversations with McVeigh that center around “politics, secret societies, some religion and conspiracy theories,” UFOs, and government conspiracies to addict its citizens to illegal drugs. Lebron wonders if McVeigh himself might belong to a secret society of some sort, perhaps a Freemason sect. Lebron will recall McVeigh showing him Ku Klux Klan newsletters and gold coins, some minted in Canada. Lebron becomes worried enough about McVeigh’s apparent instability to tape-record some of their conversations, and keep notes of what McVeigh tells him. What seems to worry Lebron the most is McVeigh’s talk about stealing weapons from Army bases. In August, McVeigh quits his job at Burns, telling coworkers: “I got to get out of this place. It’s all liberals here.” Lebron bids him goodbye, saying, “Stay out of trouble,” to which McVeigh replies: “I can’t stay out of trouble. Trouble will find me.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 48-57] Law professor Douglas O. Linder will later speculate that McVeigh’s radicalization may have been triggered, and was certainly deepened, by the FBI’s raid on the Ruby Ridge compound of white supremacist Randy Weaver (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992). [Douglas O. Linder, 2006] McVeigh later tells his lawyers that during this time, he became increasingly stressed because of what he will call his “heightened sense of awareness of what the news was really saying.” He becomes increasingly obsessed with the news, raging at politicians for trying to blend politics and the military, and at the government for “strong-arming other countries and telling them what to do.” He becomes increasingly enraged by what he calls the increasing anti-gun sentiment in the US, and the “liberal mindset that all things in the world could be solved by discussion.” He learned in the military that most problems can best be solved by aggression, he will say, citing physical fights he had with fellow soldiers and angry confrontations with fellow security workers. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]Movements Cloudy - McVeigh’s movements are somewhat cloudy during this period. A New York Times report will say that McVeigh and Nichols may have lived together in Marion, Kansas, not Michigan, and McVeigh may have moved to Kingman, Arizona, during this time or sometime later. [New York Times, 4/23/1995]Future Oklahoma City Bomber - McVeigh will go on to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City, with Nichols’s aid (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Haner-Mele will have difficulty believing McVeigh orchestrated the bombing. “Timmy just wasn’t the type of person who could initiate action,” she will say. “He was very good if you said, ‘Tim, watch this door—don’t let anyone through.’ The Tim I knew couldn’t have masterminded something like this and carried it out himself. It would have had to have been someone who said: ‘Tim, this is what you do. You drive the truck.’” [New York Times, 5/4/1995] McVeigh’s cousin Kyle Kraus, who received a copy of The Turner Diaries from McVeigh, puts the book away until after the bombing, when he will reread some of it. Horrified, he will contact the FBI; the copy will become an exhibit in McVeigh’s criminal trial (see August 10, 1995). [Serrano, 1998, pp. 51]

“Racial Loyalty,” the monthly newsletter published by the racist Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973 and 1982-1983), reprints an essay by David Lane on “the Christian Right-wing American Patriots, C.R.A.P. (since that is what they do to [sic] the future of all White children).” Lane is a member of the far-right terrorist group The Order (see Late September 1983) and is serving a 40-year racketeering sentence, as well as a 150-year term for civil rights violation in connection with the 1984 murder of radio talk show host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After). Many far-right organizations who espouse their own versions of Christianity (see 1960s and After), including the Ku Klux Klan, oppose the COTC’s rejection of Christianity. [Anti-Defamation League, 1993]

White supremacist Timothy McVeigh (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990 and November 1991 - Summer 1992) moves out of his father’s house in Pendleton, New York, and into a nearby apartment. During this time, he may have a brief affair with a married woman. Also, sometime during this period, he obtains a Ku Klux Klan membership card in Harrison, Arkansas, and drives to Michigan, where he meets his friend Terry Nichols’s brother James Nichols (see December 22 or 23, 1988). He begins receiving subscription copies of the white supremacist magazine The Spotlight. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]

Carole Howe. [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Carole (or Carol) Howe, a former college student who became involved with a number of white supremacists and anti-government radicals at Elohim City, Oklahoma (see 1973 and After), allegedly gives federal agents repeated warnings about a bombing planned for Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Howe left Tulsa Metro Christian Academy after falling in with local “skinheads,” and became romantically involved with Dennis Mahon, a former Ku Klux Klan member, the leader of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR) organization, and the purveyor of Tulsa’s Dial-a-Racist telephone line. Mahon, 46, later says he became involved with Howe because she wrote him a letter in the spring of 1993 after calling his telephone line, claiming “she was 23, pure Aryan, considered beautiful, and wanted to fight for her race and culture. So, hey, I sent her some tapes.” Mahon will say that he considered Howe brilliantly intelligent and well-spoken, and wanted to make her a movement spokesperson: “I was going to get her on Oprah. Most of our women are not very intelligent. All they can say is ‘n_gger this’ and ‘n_gger that.’ She could have been our Aryan spokeswoman.” Mahon began taking her to Elohim City. The relationship had soured by the summer of 1994, and in August 1994, after filing a restraining order against Mahon, Howe was recruited as an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF). In a letter to her parents explaining her decision to work for the government, she says: “I don’t like America as she is today. But I don’t think she is past saving. And if there’s something I can do to help this country realize a glimmer of her potential greatness, then I must do it. These people intend to start a war here within the next few years. They have the power, means, and support to do it. This war would especially devastate America.” Between August 1994 and March 1995, Howe supplies the BATF with 38 audiotapes’ worth of surveillance. She tells her handler that Elohim City leader Robert Millar is spoiling for a new revolution, and repeatedly gives sermons preaching violence against the US government, particularly the BATF. He says that the group will expand its influence throughout the Midwest, and other militia groups will unite with the Elohim City forces to contend with the government. She is briefly deactivated after an apparent suicide attempt, but will be reactivated after the bombing, when she says the sketch of the “John Doe No. 2” suspect (see April 20, 1995) resembles one of the Elohom City residents, probably neo-Nazi Andreas Strassmeir. The day after the April 19, 1995 bombing, Howe will tell a reporter that she warned the BATF that Strassmeir and Michael Brescia (see 1992 - 1995) had “cased” the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in preparation for the bombing (see November 1994). She will also claim to have told her handler, BATF agent Angela Finley, about the Elohim community’s preparations for a much larger assault, perhaps as a prelude to the long-anticipated “race war” they had so often predicted. Government sources will say Howe made no warnings until after the bombing, when she tells federal agents of Mahon’s and Strassmeir’s plans. After the bombing, her information will consist largely of reporting on the Elohim residents’ attempts to lock down their own alibis. Howe will say that she saw accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) at the compound, then withdraw that claim. Federal agents will consider her answers speculative and lacking in evidence, though reports by some BATF and FBI agents may contradict that assessment. Mahon will later say that Howe attempted to entrap others at the Elohim City compound into committing illegal acts, apparently alluding to his suspicion that she was an informant. In March 1995, the BATF releases Howe as an informant, saying she is erratic and unreliable, though some reports indicate that she may serve as an informant well into 1996. [Time, 2/24/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 267-268; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003]

Don Black, working on the Stormfront.org Web site. [Source: New Times / David Abel]Don Black, the owner of the overtly racist, “white nationalist” Web site Stormfront.org (see March 1995), gives an interview to a reporter from the progressive New Times. Black later posts the interview on his site, with a mocking introduction that calls the report full of “nasty invective” and “arguably the most malicious article I’ve ever had written about me since they started coming 30 years ago.” Black tells the reporter: “We see the breakup [of the United States] coming in about 20 years—it’s a natural progression of events. The Internet is a means of planting seeds for the future. There are a lot of middle-class people who feel disaffected—and in Stormfront they can find what they can’t in the mass media. It’s about building a community and attracting hard-core supporters. We don’t use the ‘n_gger, n_gger’ type of approaches. We don’t want to present the Jerry Springer or Geraldo Rivera image of rabid racists [referring to two confrontational talk show hosts whose guests routinely scream invective at one another]. There are a lot of people who want to agree with us. They just don’t want to be associated with that.” Black explains why he and his fellow white supremacists do not support the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, saying: “I’m not into Martin Luther King’s birthday, of course. It’s an example of a government that no longer represents the interest of the majority of its people. One that no longer represents the heritage of this country. But the minority liberal, multcultural orthodoxy in this country has determined him to be a national hero. And while most Americans opposed the holiday—white Americans, of course—they now have to accept it, like they have accepted everything imposed on them.” Of his West Palm Beach, Florida, neighborhood, Black says he is uncomfortable with the number of Latinos that live there: “It bothers me this area is more Guatemalan than American. It bothers me to wait in line at Publix [a local grocery store] for a Guatemalan to get out his food stamps. I don’t want to pay taxes for them. It’s too much like New York—it’s the front lines of the third world invasion.” He tells the reporter that he doesn’t hate people of other races, he just thinks they should not live in the US. Black works primarily as a Web designer, making commercial sites for local businesses and a few political clients around the country, and doing pro bono work for a number of other white supremacist organizations such as Aryan Nations, The Truth at Last Newspaper, the Church of the Creator’s Web site (COTC—see July-December 1995), a Ku Klux Klan history site, and an Aryan Dating Page. His wife also works to support the family. The majority of Black’s worktime goes into maintaining Stormfront. The latest addition to the site, a discussion forum, requires constant monitoring, he says, both to purge harshly critical comments from critics and to delete posts that advocate violence, give bomb-making instructions, and the like. He also spends a great deal of time defending the site from “cyber attacks,” saying that outside sources relentlessly bombard the servers with denial-of-service (DOS) attacks, “ping floods,” “email bombs,” and other attempts to crash the Stormfront servers and drive the site offline. He plans on adding a live call-in streaming-audio broadcast soon. The site features links to sites that deny the Holocaust, propound “scientifically” based racism, display graphic images of Nazi and SS emblems and paraphernelia, and a plethora of racist and anti-Semitic essays and documents. Michael Winograd of the Anti-Defamation League says of Black: “He is showing the way for Klansmen, neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, and other haters who now utilize the World Wide Web to spread their propaganda and seek to attract new members. [Black] is a troubling character precisely because he is relatively articulate and intelligent and is not the knuckle-scraping neanderthal one might expect.” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, says: “The lunatic fringe has embraced this technology with a sophistication and a veracity that is frightening.… What started as a trickle has now evolved into an incredible deluge. In the last year alone, we’ve seen a 300 percent increase in the number of these pages put up on the World Wide Web.… We should be concerned about tomorrow’s Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) emerging and saying, ‘Well this turns me on,’ or ‘I’m really angry about this too.’” Black’s site is at the forefront of this movement. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke says of Black: “Don is more than a very good friend, he is one of the leading individuals in the white-rights movement. He’s matured over time—like we all do with age—into a very calm and stoic individual. He has always been a dedicated individual that’s self-sacrificing.” [New Times, 2/19/1998]

Stephen “Don” Black. [Source: Page2Live (.com)]Don Black, an Alabama white supremacist who lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, founds an organization called Stormfront. Stormfront’s Web site, Stormfront.org, will become the most prominent white supremacist site on the Internet, and will come to serve as the hub of a network of related Web sites. [Swain and Nieli, 1995, pp. 153-157; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2005] The site states its purpose: “Stormfront is a resource for those courageous men and women fighting to preserve their White Western culture, ideals, and freedom of speech and association—a forum for planning strategies and forming political and social groups to ensure victory.” [New Times, 2/19/1998] The Stormfront motto is “White Pride World Wide.” Bob DeMarais, a former staff member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974), later writes, “Without a doubt, Stormfront is the most powerful active influence in the White Nationalist movement.” By 2005, the site will boast some 52,000 members and Jamie Kelso, who will begin working with Black in 2002, will claim 500 new members join every week. DeMarais will give Kelso a great deal of credit for building the Stormfront community of users. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2005] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will call Stormfront.org the first “hate site” on the Internet. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001]Began Extolling White Supremacist Ideology in High School, Went on to Lead KKK - Black began his career as a white supremacist while still in high school in the early 1970s, joining the National Socialist White People’s Party and handing out racist tabloids to his fellow students. In 1971, he was shot by Jerry Ray, the manager for white supremacist J.B. Stoner’s unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in Georgia. Ray, the brother of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s assassin James Earl Ray, thought that Black had broken into Stoner’s office to steal a mailing list for the National Socialist White People’s Party. Black recovered, and attended the University of Alabama, where he was ejected from the ROTC program for his racist statements. Subsequently he began working with Klan leader David Duke to revitalize the foundering Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). According to a 1995 report by the progressive New Times: “Duke taught Black it’s easier to attract supporters by criticizing affirmative action, illegitimate welfare births, and illegal immigration than labeling blacks as inferior or Jews as rich enemies. The goal was to avoid inflammatory remarks and present oneself as dignified—sticking to the issues. Supremacy is presented as nationalism. And intolerance warps into a preference for one’s own heritage.” After Duke was forced out of the KKK over allegations of selling its mailing list, Black took over the organization until 1981, when he spent three years in prison for fomenting a plot with other supremacists to invade the tiny Caribbean island nation of Dominica (see June 21, 1981). Black learned to program computers during his prison term. He returned to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1985, telling friends, “I’m here to build the greatest white racist regime this country has ever seen.” After quitting the Klan because of its overt advocacy of violence, he decided to execute his plans via the Internet, still in its infancy at the time. [Swain and Nieli, 1995, pp. 153-157; New Times, 2/19/1998; BBC, 1/12/2000; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2005] Black’s efforts will be quite successful; in 1995, he will tell a reporter: “A third of households have computers and with the phenomenal growth of the Internet, tens of millions of people have access to our message if they wish. The access is anonymous and there is unlimited ability to communicate with others of a like mind.” [New York Times, 3/13/1995]Launches Internet BBS that Becomes Stormfront - In 1991, having married Duke’s ex-wife Chloe and moved to Florida, Black launched an Internet bulletin board (BBS) to support Duke’s unsuccessful candidacy for a US Senate seat from Louisiana. In early posts on Stormfront, Black explains that white Americans have as much right to espouse their culture as any other group, and says that Stormfront attempts to provide an alternative to the mainstream American media, which he says is dominated by Jews and liberals who routinely disparage and mock whites. Black says that his racist views are in line with those held by Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers. He calls the site the Internet presence for the “white nationalist” movement, which proclaims its intention to “separate” from minorities and found an all-white nation or state within American borders. He will tell a reporter: “We believe that our people, white people in this country and throughout the world, are being discriminated against. They’re being treated as second-class citizens. We’re tired of seeing other racial and ethnic groups impose their agenda on us.” [Swain and Nieli, 1995, pp. 153-157; New Times, 2/19/1998; BBC, 1/12/2000]Expansion - Between 1995 and 1997, Stormfront features the violent, racist writings of the National Alliance’s William Pierce (see 1978), his former mentor David Duke, the National Alliance’s Institute for Historical Review (a Holocaust-denying think tank), and others. The site promotes an array of conspiracy theories surrounding the 1992 Ruby Ridge shootings (see August 31, 1992), the 1993 Branch Davidian debacle (see April 19, 1993), and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). On Stormfront’s Web site, right-wing lawyer Kirk Lyons compares the Branch Davidian events to the Nazi destruction of the Czechoslovakian town of Lidice. Anti-Semitic writer Eustace Mullins suggests that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization dedicated to tracking and challenging racist organizations, was behind the Oklahoma City bombing. The site houses a library of neo-Nazi graphics available for download, a list of phone numbers for racist computer bulletin boards not on the Internet, and a page of links to other hate sites. By 1997, Stormfront begins hosting pages of other extremist groups such as Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s), and individuals such as Ed Fields, who publishes the racist newsletter The Truth at Last. Black reprints white supremacist articles and essays, including one that attacks the Talmud, a Jewish holy book, as filled with “malice,” “hate-mongering,” and “barbarities.” Black also reprints an essay by neo-Nazi Louis Beam (see February 1992), who claims he has knowledge of a Jewish conspiracy to censor the Internet. Black also adds new features to his site: pages “proving” the “inferiority” of the “Negro” race, a translation of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, a page of “quotes” by Jews that are either false or deliberately mistranslated along with quotes by anti-Semites, and “White Singles,” a dating service for “heterosexual, white gentiles only.” Black also adds a news section, White Nationalist News Agency (NNA), which posts the text of articles from the Associated Press and other reputable news sources, apparently without legal permission and often with racist commentary included. Black also hosts “Blitzcast,” an audio podcast that lets listeners hear speeches by the late George Lincoln Rockwell, the assassinated leader of the American Nazi Party; William Pierce; anti-Semitic Jew Benjamin Freedman; and Frank Weltner, who hosts another Black-operated site, Jew Watch. Yet another site Black hosts, Bamboo Delight, hides anti-Semitic materials behind the false front of a company selling “Tai Chi Chuan Chinese Exercise” materials. Looking past “Asian Health Philosophy” items such as the “Nine Treasure Exercises of Ancient China” videotape and the “Skinny Buddha Weight Loss Method” pamphlet, visitors find the downloadable computer programs “Jew Rats,” “Police Patriots,” “ZOG,” and “Talmud.” These programs are interactive in the same way that Web pages are interactive: users “click through” their contents, viewing various pages filled with text and graphics. “Jew Rats” is a multi-panel cartoon that depicts Jews as rats that kill Christians and encourage integration. Blacks are depicted as sub-human gorillas. “ZOG” contains the complete text of the “classic” anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” along with dozens of other documents that claim knowledge of Jewish plans for world domination. Adrian Edward Marlow, who owns the servers Black uses for Stormfront and the other related sites, has bought over 10 domains that seem to be the URLs of prominent newspapers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Atlanta Constitution-Journal, and the London Telegraph. By October 1998, Marlow has redirected those domains directly to Stormfront. Typing in “philadelphiainquirer.com,” for example, does not bring surfers to the Philadelphia newspaper’s Web site, but to Stormfront. (The Inquirer will subsequently secure that domain name from Marlow.) [Anti-Defamation League, 1998]Deliberate Attempts at 'Moderating' Message - Black takes care not for his site to appear overly crude or violent. Forum posters are warned to avoid using racial slurs and not to post violent threats or exhortations to illegal activities, “moderating” tactics apparently learned from Duke. Black will also be somewhat successful at presenting himself, and by extension his supremacist ideology, on television, insisting that his site is more about presenting information not filtered by the “media monopoly” than promoting racist beliefs (see January 13, 1998). Kelso later tells a reporter with evident pride: “One of the things that Don Black does very well is he doesn’t fit the stereotype of an angry man. Don is the most under-recognized giant in the whole white nationalist movement.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2005] Black will deny that the name “Stormfront” has any Nazi connotations, and in 1998 will explain the name, saying: “You need a colorful name. We wanted something militant-sounding that was also political and social. Stormfront says turbulence is coming, and afterwards there’ll be a cleansing effect.” Though his site is peppered with virulent anti-Semitic claims and articles, Black will deny that either he or his site espouses any hatred towards Jews. Black will also deny that he is a neo-Nazi or even a white supremacist, and say he is a “racialist” (see September 1983, March 15, 2002, July 15, 2002, and June 7, 2009) but not a racist. Black will call the term “racist” nothing more than a “scare word” with little real meaning. His son Derek will soon open a subsidiary site aimed at white children, “Stormfront for Kids” (see July 16, 2001). [Swain and Nieli, 1995, pp. 153-157; New Times, 2/19/1998; BBC, 1/12/2000] In 1998, the ADL will take issue with Black’s claims of not being a racist, writing, “Though Black claims to be a ‘White Nationalist,’ not a hatemonger, his idea of ‘White Pride’ involves demeaning, demonizing, and menacing Jews and non-whites, and his concept of ‘victory’ includes the creation of ethnically cleansed political enclaves. [Anti-Defamation League, 1998] In 2001, David Friedman of the Anti-Defamation League will tell a reporter: “Put aside your prejudices about who’s in the hate movement. If you’re looking for people in white sheets, you won’t find them. These are sophisticated bigots who have thought very carefully about the best ways to proselytize people to their hate.” [USA Today, 7/16/2001]

Federal authorities raid the Illinois home of Ricky Salyers, a former Marine and current white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan member. They find 35,000 rounds of heavy ammunition, armor piercing shells, smoke and tear gas grenades, live shells for grenade launchers, artillery shells, and other military gear. Salyers is allegedly a member of the underground Black Dawn group of extremists in the military; he will be sentenced later in the year to serve three years for weapons violations. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001]

Three Ku Klux Klan members are arrested in a plot to blow up a natural gas refinery outside Fort Worth, Texas. The three, along with a fourth arrested later, planned to blow up the refinery, killing hundreds of people including children at a nearby school, as a diversion for a simultaneous armored car robbery. All four will plead guilty to conspiracy charges and be sentenced to terms of up to 20 years. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001]

Three men affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan are arrested in Illinois on weapons charges. The three, along with three others arrested later, are accused of plotting to murder a federal judge and civil rights lawyer Morris Dees; blow up the Southern Poverty Law Center, which Dees co-founded, and other buildings; poison water supplies; and rob banks. The six will receive terms of up to seven years in prison. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001]

James Byrd Jr. [Source: EbonyInspired (.com)]James Byrd Jr., an African-American resident of Jasper, Texas, is murdered by three white men in what appears to be a racially motivated incident. Jasper County District Attorney Guy James Gray calls the killing “probably the most brutal I’ve ever seen” in 20 years as a prosecutor. Within hours of the attack, John William “Bill” King, Lawrence Russell Brewer, and Shawn Allen Berry are arrested and charged with murder and kidnapping. All three men have prison records and room together in a local apartment; King and Brewer are members of the white supremacist groups Aryan Nations and Confederate Knights of America, the latter an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan. The police find racist literature in their apartment [New York Times, 6/10/1998; CNN, 7/6/1998] , including documents written by King and Brewer indicating that they intended to start a new white supremacist group of their own. [New York Times, 2/17/1999] Local Klan organizations quickly disavow any connection to the crimes. [New York Times, 6/17/1998]Last Ride - Byrd, walking home from a bridal shower, accepts a ride from the three; by all accounts, he does not know the men. Instead of taking Byrd home, the three drive him to a wooded area, beat him, chain him by the ankles to Berry’s truck, and drag him down a rough logging road east of Jasper. The dragging tears Byrd’s body into pieces; his severed head, neck, and right arm are discovered about a mile from where the three finally dump his mangled torso. During the trial, a doctor testifies that he believes Byrd is alive and perhaps conscious until his body strikes a culvert, where his head and arm are torn from his body. Dr. Thomas Brown tells the court, “He was alive when the head, shoulder, and right arm were separated.” The local sherriff, tipped off by an anonymous phone call, finds Byrd’s remains. A trail of blood, body parts, and personal effects stretches for two miles down the road. Berry, who cooperates with police and leads them to King and Brewer, later tells investigators that Brewer sprays Byrd’s face with black paint before he and King chain him to the back of the truck. [State of Texas, 7/1/1998; CNN, 7/6/1998; CNN, 7/8/1998; CNN, 2/22/1999] Investigators find a cigarette lighter dropped at the scene, inscribed with a Klan insignia, that belongs to King. [New York Times, 6/10/1998] Experts also tie blood on the truck, and on the three men’s clothes and shoes, to Byrd. [New York Times, 2/19/1999; New York Times, 9/24/1999] Berry’s involvement surprises many area residents, who characterize him as a petty criminal who they believed was incapable of being involved in such a brutal crime. A friend says: “I never heard Shawn say anything racist. I have a lot of black friends. He has a lot of black friends. All this news has just shocked me and everyone he knows.” Friends are less surprised at the involvement of King and Brewer, both of whom they say had their racial hatred intensified during their prison terms. “The level of racism in prison is very high,” says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “The truth is, you may go in completely unracist and emerge ready to kill people who don’t look like you.” [New York Times, 6/17/1998]Funeral Draws National Attention - Dozens of civil rights leaders and national politicians join area residents at Byrd’s funeral, and call for an end to racial hatred and intolerance (see June 13, 1998). Father Apologizes - King’s father, Ronald L. King, also a Jasper resident, releases a letter apologizing for his son’s actions. The letter reads in part: “My sympathy goes out to the Byrd family. There is no reason for a person to take the life of another, and to take it in such a manner is beyond any kind of reasoning. It hurts me deeply to know that a boy I raised and considered to be the most loved boy I knew could find it in himself to take a life. This deed cannot be undone, but I hope we can all find it in our hearts to go forward in peace and with love for all. Let us find in our hears love for our fellow man. Hate can only destroy. Again, I want to say I’m sorry.” Clinton: Town Must 'Join Together across Racial Lines' - President Clinton calls the murder shocking and outrageous, and says the residents of Jasper “must join together across racial lines to demonstrate that an act of evil like this is not what this country is all about.… I think we’ve all been touched by it, and I can only imagine that virtually everyone who lives there is in agony at this moment.” [New York Times, 6/11/1998]Indications of Klan Activity in Area - The mayor of Jasper, R. C. Horn, an African-American, says that the city is relatively peaceful from a racial aspect, and says the city “has a strong bind together, both black and white.” But Gary Bledsoe of the Texas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) says the area of east Texas that contains Jasper has been a center of Klan activity for years. Bledsoe points to serious problems in the nearby town of Vidor, for years a de facto “white town,” that centered around integrating a housing project. Lou Ann Reed, a local cashier, says she deplores the killing: “I don’t think anybody should be treated that way, I don’t care what color they are. Not even an animal.” Reed, who is white, refuses to answer when asked if she has heard that some white residents might have sympathies with white supremacist groups; when asked if the killing surprised her, she says, “Nothing surprises me anymore.” Black residents tell reporters that harassment and physical abuse from whites is not uncommon, and there are areas in and around town they have learned not to frequent for fear of being attacked. [New York Times, 6/10/1998; New York Times, 6/11/1998] A New York Times editorial calls the murder a “lynching by pickup truck.” [New York Times, 6/14/1998] Both local Klan organizations and black militant organizations march in Jasper shortly after Byrd’s murder (see June 27, 1998). Hate Crime - Texas authorities charge King, Brewer, and Berry with a variety of felonies, including murder and kidnapping; the addition of hate crime charges makes them eligible for the death penalty. During their trials, both Brewer and King are depicted as unrepentant white racists. King’s former supervisor, roofing contractor Dennis Symmack, says that though a quiet man, King harbors strongly racist views. “Bill was a quiet man, not a talker,” Symmack testifies, and recalls King expressing “an intense dislike of blacks.” Symmack says that according to King, “[B]lacks are different from whites and are taking over everything—taking over welfare.” Tattoo artist Johnny Mosley, a former inmate who served time with King, says that King asked for an array of racist tattoos—including one depicting the lynching of a black man and another reading “Aryan Pride”—in large part to intimidate other inmates and to avoid being sexually assaulted. [CNN, 7/6/1998; New York Times, 7/7/1998; New York Times, 2/19/1999; CNN, 2/22/1999; New York Times, 2/24/1999] During the trial, King claims that the crime was not racially motivated, but was impelled by Berry’s desire to buy drugs from Byrd; additionally, he claims that Berry’s abuse of steroids prompted the brutalization of their victim, and that he himself had nothing to do with assaulting Byrd. Authorities find King’s claims entirely baseless [New York Times, 11/12/1998] ; instead, prosecutors tell the court that King wanted to start his own white supremacist group, and targeted Byrd as a way to shine attention on himself and gain members. [New York Times, 2/17/1999; CNN, 2/22/1999] During his trial, Brewer attempts to blame Berry for the actual murder, an argument that the jury disregards in favor of a letter written by Brewer bragging about his role in the murder and saying: “Well, I did it. And no longer am I a virgin. It was a rush, and I’m still licking my lips for more.” [New York Times, 9/24/1999] All three are found guilty; King and Brewer are sentenced to death, and Berry receives life in prison with no chance of parole until 2039. Both King and Brewer later write racist graffiti on the walls of their jail cells. In a jailhouse letter to Brewer, King will write of his pride in the crime, and accepts the fact that he may die for it. “Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history,” King says in the letter intercepted by jail officials. “Death before dishonor. Sieg Heil!” [New York Times, 11/18/1998; New York Times, 2/17/1999; New York Times, 2/19/1999; New York Times, 2/24/1999; New York Times, 9/24/1999] During the closing arguments of King’s trial, Gray discusses the concept of violent racism: “It’s something that’s a virus. It’s something that’s dangerous. It’s something that spreads from one person to another.” [New York Times, 2/24/1999]Murders Sparks Hate-Crime Legislation - The murder of Byrd and a subsequent murder of a gay Colorado student, Matthew Shepard (see October 9, 1998 and After), will be a catalyst for the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (see October 28, 2009).

Local Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and New Black Panthers—militant groups that many feel are polar opposites of one another—march in the small town of Jasper, Texas, in response to the recent brutal murder of African-American resident James Byrd by self-avowed white supremacists (see June 7, 1998 and After). Authorities fear the two groups will engage in a physical altercation, but they exchange nothing more than intemperate and sometimes profane rhetoric. Residents did not want either group to march, but their wishes were not heeded; both President Clinton and Governor George W. Bush had asked that the groups refrain from marching, but their wishes, too, were ignored by both groups. Jasper resident Joyce Edmond, an African-American, says, “It’s wrong for either of them to be here.” She echoes the sentiments of many residents by saying that both groups are using Byrd’s murder to gain attention for themselves. Local government official Walter Diggles, an African-American, says of the groups’ rival marches: “It’s the outside coming in and disrupting a community that has been dealing very conscientiously with this situation. It’s a distraction.” The KKK members, mostly from neighboring Vidor and Waco, and the New Black Panthers and Black Muslims, from Dallas and Houston respectively, are surrounded by state troopers wearing face shields and bulletproof vests. Both sides give fiery speeches laced with racial slurs and conspiracy theories. Both sides brought large amounts of weapons, but were prohibited by police from carrying them. One white and one black militant are arrested for disorderly conduct. Several times, the crowd of onlookers laughs derisively at the militants. In a statement, Byrd’s family says: “Let this horrendous violation of the sanctity of life not be a spark that ignites more hatred and retribution. Rather, let this be a wake-up call for America, for all Americans. Let it spark a cleansing fire of self-examination and reflection.” Klan members insist that the march is to distance the organization from Byrd’s murder, and both sides claim they have come to Jasper to protect the community from the other side. [New York Times, 6/27/1998; New York Times, 6/28/1998]

After Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler (see Early 1970s) loses his compound to a civil judgment (see 2000), racist millionaire Vincent Bertollini buys him a house in Hayden, Idaho. Butler, beset by age and infirmity as well as the enormous financial burden of the civil judgment, will see the group eventually disintegrate, riven by dissension and rivalry among various members hoping to assume the mantle of leadership. Many Aryan Nations state chapters fold and the organization’s membership dwindles. The members of an Alabama chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, formerly affilates of the Nations, renounce their membership. Montana leader Charles Mangels leaves the organization after Butler accuses Mangels of trying to depose him; Mangels goes on to found a rival organization in Montana. Another rival, August Kreis, insists that he now leads the organization from his Pennsylvania power base. Butler names Neuman Britton, the organization’s California leader, as his eventual successor, but Britton dies shortly thereafter. Butler then chooses Ohio member Harold Ray Redfeairn as his heir apparent. Redfeairn (see Late 1990s) is a poor choice; a paranoid schizophrenic who served prison time for shooting a police officer, he and Kreis attempt to overthrow Butler in an internal coup, and Redfeairn leaves the group. He will return in 2003 and once again be named Butler’s successor, but will die shortly thereafter. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2003; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010]

Eric D. Hanson, a former Marine, overt racist, and member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974), attends a Ku Klux Klan rally in Skokie, Illinois. He refuses to stand behind police barriers and instead mingles in the crowd wearing a shirt depicting a Star of David with a slash through it. Eyewitnesses see him attack an African-American woman as she walks down Old Orchard Road, but Hanson flees before police can apprehend him. [Nicole Nichols, 2003]

Eric D. Hanson, a former Marine, overt racist, and member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974), is killed after a 14-hour gun battle and standoff with police in Lindenhurst, Illinois. Police investigtors approach Hanson while he is sitting in his car in front of his house, and attempt to arrest him for illegal weapons possession and gunrunning. Hanson flees, and the officers follow him to a grocery store parking lot. Hanson then opens fire on the officers, shooting one in the neck and thigh and a second in his bulletproof vest. Hanson runs inside the store, exits to again shoot at the officers, enters the store again and tells those inside to leave, and hides inside the now-deserted store. Police descend on the store. At 3:00 a.m., a remote-controlled bomb squad robot searches the store, but does not locate Hanson. A tactical weapons team then enters the store and finds Hanson hiding in a meat locker. Hanson fires at the tactical officers and they return fire, killing him. Hanson was previously convicted of assaulting an interracial couple in 1999, and told the jury during the proceedings: “Whites and blacks should be separate. It made me upset to see them together.” After his release from jail, he worked diligently for the National Alliance, distributing racist and anti-Semitic literature in Chicago and organizing a local unit in that city. According to a friend, Hanson particularly enjoyed “agitat[ing] the Jews,” and the friend tells reporters of an incident where Hanson and two other Alliance friends bought an Israeli flag in a local mall and stomped it in the middle of the mall while screaming anti-Semitic imprecations. Six months before his final standoff, Hanson assaulted an African-American woman after attending a Ku Klux Klan rally (see December 16, 2000). National Alliance members will memorialize Hanson in emails and Internet forum postings, calling him a hero, a “racial leader” and a “brave warrior,” and accusing police of setting up the situation to ensure Hanson’s death. Alliance members will grant Hanson the status of official “martyr” for the “cause.” [Center for New Community, 8/2002 ; Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/2002; Nicole Nichols, 2003] After Hanson’s death, Dave Neesan, who will succeed Hanson as the Alliance chapter leader in Chicago, will write, “His honor, patriotism, and honesty led him to draw an obvious conclusion: America is in deep trouble, and real Americans—White Americans—are being pushed out of their country.” Hanson was a “white patriot” who was merely protecting his rights against an unfair and murderous police presence, Neesan will say. More importantly, according to Neesan, Hanson’s death galvanizes the Chicago chapter, pushing it to more prominent actions in and around Chicago, though nothing to the level of violence in which Hanson engaged. Like many other more modern white supremacists, Neesan believes in moderating the appearance of organizations like the Alliance, eschewing “white sheets” and racial epithets for suits and ties and toned-down language. Still, Neesan will claim, Hanson and his actions, including his assaults on African-Americans and his violent resistance to arrest, make him a role model for newer Alliance members. [Daily Herald (Arlington Heights), 5/2/2004]

Michael Edward Smith, a well-dressed young man wearing sunglasses and surgical gloves, sits in a parked car across from the Sherith Israel Congregation synagogue in Nashville, Tennessee. Smith has an AR-15 assault rifle, and plans on shooting someone either entering or exiting the building. A passing motorist sees Smith and his rifle and calls the police. When police confront Smith outside his apartment, he refuses to surrender, and manages to break away to his car, where he proceeds to flee down Interstate 65 while holding a gun to his own head. The chase ends in a parking lot outside a pharmacy, where the police find the AR-15, a handgun, ammunition, and surgical gloves in Smith’s car. After learning of the incident, Deborah Lauter of the Anti-Defamation League tells reporters: “The sight of a man pointing an assault rifle at a synagogue is chilling. We are thankful to the person who reported the incident and to law enforcement for their swift actions in apprehending the suspect.” Smith, a member of the violent, neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974), has been influenced by two books, both published by Alliance founder William Pierce: The Turner Diaries, which tells of a genocidal race war in a near-future America (see 1978), and Hunter, a novel depicting a lone assassin gunning down Jews and African-Americans (see 1988). Three days later, he is charged with multiple felonies after divulging his ties to the National Alliance and the existence of a small arsenal in his apartment, in a storage facility, and buried on his parents’ land in the country. Authorities find, among other items: an anti-tank rocket; eight firearms, including a sniper rifle; 13 grenades; 13 pipe bombs; over 2,000 rounds of armor-piercing ammunition; smoke bombs; dynamite fuses; and two duffel bags filled with chemicals. They also find copies of both novels and other materials from the Alliance and the Ku Klux Klan, to which he also admits membership. The FBI classifies Smith as a “domestic terrorist.” James Cavanaugh of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) says: “Basically, we’ve got hand grenades, we’ve got assault rifles, and we’ve got a mind full of hate and a recipe for disaster.… Anybody who would stockpile that stuff is certainly on the precipice of using them.” Smith readily admits his admiration for the fictional main chacter of Hunter, Oscar Yeager, who in the first scene of the book assassinates an interracial couple from a vantage point inside his car. And, he says, the National Alliance and the KKK gave him training in “how to make and how to use explosives, [and gave him] sniper and combat training.” Smith tells questioners that he “dislike[s] Jews.” Local activists later tell the FBI that Smith took part in a November 2001 National Alliance rally outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC. Authorities later find an email from Smith stating Jews “perhaps” should be “stuffed head first into an oven.” [Center for New Community, 8/2002 ; Anti-Defamation League, 5/27/2003; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2005] Smith will later plead guilty to four weapons-related offenses. [Anti-Defamation League, 5/27/2003]

Johnny Lee Clary. [Source: Christian Family Churches of Australia (.com)]The Reverend Johnny Lee Clary, who describes himself as a former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who abandoned his allegiance to white supremacist ideology after converting to Christianity and now preaches against racism and white separatism, answers a number of questions about the Klan and related organizations on his Web site. The John Birch Society - According to Clary, the John Birch Society (JBS—see March 10, 1961 and December 2011) “is just a political version of the KKK, without the name of the KKK. They center on the political ideas of the Klan and are not as vocal in public on the ideas of the racial superiority, but they attract the same people and say the same things behind closed doors.… The John Birch Society is the Klan.… They are racist, and full of hate and are officially listed as a hate group with several civil rights organizations throughout the USA.” Tom Metzger, the founder and leader of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), is an active leader of a California chapter of the JBS, Clary writes, as are many other members of the Klan and various neo-Nazi and white supremacist militia groups. Clary explains why the Klan is openly racist and the JBS is not, stating: “The John Birch Society’s function is to recruit professional people into their ranks of anti-government conspiracy freaks, that would be too afraid to join an organization with the name of the KKK. They suck these people into their ranks and use the donations to further the cause of radical un-American fascist racist KKK activities. This is a ploy for the KKK to get funding to help spread their agenda.” In response to an email from a JBS member portraying his organization as “conservative,” Clary writes: “Please do not try to represent your organization as ‘conservative.’ You are not conservative, and are disowned by the Republican Party and are considered a disgrace to true conservatives everywhere. Ronald Reagan, the greatest conservative American ever, would have nothing to do with any of you. Neither will President Bush for that matter.” Positive Aspects of the Klan - While Clary repudiates the Klan’s racism, he says there are some “good” aspects to the organization: it “stands against abortion, homosexuality, and drug dealers. They are for prayer in the schools and the use of the Bible in the classroom. These are good things that would entice some people into joining the Klan, however, if someone joined because of these reasons they would soon see that the evil the Klan does is so sinister that it far outweighs the good. The Klan is guilty of bombings, murder, and hatred of their fellow man because of the shade of their skin.” Why the KKK Hates African-Americans - In response to a letter from an African-American student asking this question, Clary writes: “I believe that one of the reason’s the Klan hates African-Americans so much is because they look different [from whites]. By putting others down they make themselves feel superior. One who hates so much really does not like his or her own self. They know deep down inside that they are a loser in society and they are searching for some way to try to achieve some sort of superiority. You have to remember also that the majority of KKK members are what would be classified as ‘poor white trash.’ Very few Klan members come from upper middle class backgrounds or even middle class for that matter. They come from backgrounds that are poor and down trodden. Instead of doing something to better themselves they build up resentment until it turns into hatred. They blame the Jews, blacks, and others for their own failures in life and they are a product of a learned response. That is, they are taught to hate.… If the blacks were not around for Klansmen to hate, it would be the Jews and if they were not around it would be the Native American Indians and if not them then someone else. When no one else that appears to be different is around then they start hating and bickering with each other. Many of them are crying out for a separate ‘Aryan’ homeland. They scream for a place where people that believe like they do can all go and live and not have to be around other races. That could be a solution that would benefit everybody. Even if there were no other races around them, their hatred is so deeply imbedded within them that they would start hating each other and finally destroy one another.” [Johnny Lee Clary, 2007; Johnny Lee Clary, 4/13/2009]

William F. Jasper. [Source: John Birch Society]William F. Jasper, a senior member of the anti-Communist, implicitly racist John Birch Society (JBS—see March 10, 1961 and December 2011) and the senior editor of its New American magazine, protests that the “left-wing media” are attempting to use the arrests of nine far-right militia members in the Midwest (see March 27-30, 2010) “to broadly smear all political conservatives, constitutionalists, tea party activists, and opponents of President Obama’s health care as ‘extremist’ and ‘anti-government.’” Jasper derides the media’s reliance on experts from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC—see March 2, 2010) for understanding and analysis of the Michigan Hutaree and other militia groups. “[P]redictably,” he writes, “the SPLC has been only too ready to spin the story as proof of their contention that the greatest danger to our republic is ‘anti-government’ extremism by ‘right-wing’ organizations the SPLC likes to identify as ‘hate groups.’” Jasper says that groups like the JBS and the Hutaree are “falsely label[ed] as being racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-government, anti-immigrant, nativist, extremist, hate-promoting, and intolerant.” He writes that the SPLC routinely conflates right-wing “constitutionalist” or “patriot” groups with “genuine hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, or the Nazi Party” in an attempt “to smear and discredit them by false association.” He then attacks the SPLC as “a principal front for the militant homosexual lobby” and a strong opponent of the “Christian Right,” accusing it of “smear[ing] such respected Christian and pro-family organizations as Dr. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, the late Rev. D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries/Center for Reclaiming America, and Beverly LaHaye’s Concerned Women for America, as well as the Alliance Defense Fund, the American Family Association, the Chalcedon Foundation, American Vision, the Christian Action Network, the Family Research Council, Summit Ministries, and the Traditional Values Coalition.” He quotes right-wing attorney Matt Barber, the director of Liberty Counsel, as calling the SPLC a “bully” organization, and cites Barber as saying that a citation by the SPLC “confers a badge of honor upon every legitimate Christian and conservative organization it so disingenuously mislabels ‘hate group.’ It’s a tacit admission by the SPLC that these groups represent a political threat; that their activities undermine the SPLC’s not-so-thinly-veiled, left-wing agenda.” And he quotes far-left columnist Alexander Cockburn, an avowed Marxist, as labeling the SPLC a “hatemongering” organization. In truth, Jasper claims, it is the SPLC and not the groups it covers that is a true “hate group” responsible for police and other law enforcement officials unfairly pursuing and even endangering what he calls innocent citizens and organizations exercising their constitutional rights to protest against their government. Jasper takes particular umbrage at a Wisconsin news report that cited the SPLC’s identification of a JBS chapter in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, as a “patriot” group. The news report quoted SPLC official Heidi Beirich as calling the JBS “one of the number one organizations that provide the conspiracy theories that fuel the anti-government world.” He also notes that the news report quoted JBS chief Arthur Thompson as admitting that while many militia groups rely on JBS literature and Web sites for their information, “that doesn’t mean we support their policies of how they want to implement what they believe in. We believe in a lot of things but we don’t believe in coercion or violence to promote what we believe in.” The JBS, Jasper writes, has “promot[ed] freedom” for over 50 years, and calls it “a patriotic, educational organization dedicated to restoring and preserving limited, constitutional government, free enterprise, and Christian-style civilization.” The JBS “has always opposed racism, anti-Semitism, communism, socialism, fascism, and Nazism,” Jasper concludes, though he acknowledges that his claim “has not stopped liberal-left critics from falsely accusing the Society of these things. In so doing these critics have adopted the tactics developed by the Communist Party of smearing their opponents rather than honestly debating them on the issues.” [John Birch Society, 6/3/2008; New American, 4/26/2010]

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) issues a press release, reprinted on its Web site, that condemns Florida pastor Terry Jones’s plans to burn Korans (see July 12, 2010 and After). The press release indicates that the KKK worries about being lumped in with Jones, “tea party” organizations, and others. The press release reads in part: “There are without doubt Islamic sects that teach extreme views of Islam but, going down to their level of hatred by burning their books is a dangerous and ignorant way to confront their teachings. The flames made by such unholy fires never die out! The Ku Klux Klan, LLC. opposes this most un-American thinking and activity.” It goes on to “absolutely repudiate” the Westboro Baptist Church’s practice of protesting at American soldiers’ funerals, and is harshly critical of tea party organizations, stating: “Our Associates, members and supporters are here officially ordered: NOT to attend Tea Party events or support them in ANY way. The Tea Party does not represent any but a shallow limited political agenda, which fails to serve our Nations [sic] interests. They are an extension of the Republican Party and seek to compromise it. We do NOT support any political party, all have betrayed the trust of the American people, and they have compromised their agenda to support the Progressive Socialist enslavement of the American people.” [Good (.is), 4/19/2011]

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney (R-MA) uses a phrase made familiar by the Ku Klux Klan in his stump speeches. In a speech given to supporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Romney says: “There are people in this room who are informed and who care about this election, who recognize that this is a defining time for America. We have on one side a president who wants to transform America into a European-style nation, and you have on other hand someone like myself that wants to turn around America and keep America America.” Reporters and bloggers note that Romney, inadvertently or not, is echoing the phrase “Keep America American” as used for nearly a century by the KKK. A 1920 pamphlet published by the United Klans of America and archived at Yale University was entitled “Why you should become a klansman: of interest to white, protestant, native born Americans who want to keep America American.” On the eve of World War II, a Klan-affiliated organization called the American Coalition pressured the US government not to admit Jewish refugees into the country. And in 1950, a pamphlet with the phrase “Keep America American” was sold in Dallas, Texas, just before a wave of bombings of African-American-owned homes rocked the city. Reporter Steve Benen also notes that the 2008 Romney campaign intended to use a similar “keep America America” attack against the Democratic nominee for that year if Romney had survived the primary process: focusing then on Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, the Romney campaign intended to run on the platform that Clinton and the Democrats wanted to “drag America down to Europe’s standards.… That’s where Hillary and Dems would take us. Hillary = France.” The Romney campaign planned to print “First, not France” bumper stickers to go along with the campaign rhetoric. [Washington Monthly, 12/12/2011; Booman Tribune, 12/12/2011; Los Angeles Times, 12/10/2012] After initially refusing to comment on the allegation of the campaign using a KKK slogan, Romney spokespersons claim that their candidate is using the phrase “Keep America America,” and not the KKK phrase. Liberal blogger John Aravosis calls the campaign’s claim “a nuance without a difference” and says, somewhat sarcastically, that if it is fair to use President Obama’s rhetoric to label him a “socialist,” then it is equally fair to use Romney’s phraseology to label him a member of the Klan. MSNBC talk show host Chris Matthews reports on the story, and is quickly pressured by NBC senior management to issue an apology to the Romney campaign, calling his reporting “irresponsible and incendiary” and indicative of “an appalling lack of judgment.” [John Aravosis, 12/13/2011; Mediaite, 12/14/2011; John Aravosis, 12/14/2011] In line with MSNBC’s retreat from its reporting, Washington Post editor Patrick B. Pexton calls the Post’s own reporting of the controversial slogan usage “error-filled,” and repeats the Romney campaign’s claim that the phrase “Keep America America” is different from the KKK’s “Keep America American.” Pexton also notes that a campaign ad on YouTube using the phrase is not an actual Romney campaign ad, but an ad by an “independent” political organization in support of Romney. [Washington Post, 12/16/2011] AlterNet’s Chauncey DeVega later writes of the controversy: “The dropping of one letter from the Ku Klux Klan’s slogan, ‘Keep America American,’ does not remove the intent behind Romney’s repeated use of such a virulently bigoted phrase. While Mitt Romney can claim ignorance of the slogan’s origins, he is intentionally channeling its energy.” DeVega notes the intensely “nativist” connotations of the phrase, and writes that Romney, like the remainder of his fellow Republican presidential contenders, is “hostile” to immigrants of any stripe, a hostility reflected in the phrase. “Romney’s slogan, ‘Keep America America,’ begs the obvious question: Just who is American? Who gets to decide?” [AlterNet, 1/25/2012]

Ordering

Time period

Email Updates

Receive weekly email updates summarizing what contributors have added to the History Commons database

Donate

Developing and maintaining this site is very labor intensive. If you find it useful, please give us a hand and donate what you can.Donate Now

Volunteer

If you would like to help us with this effort, please contact us. We need help with programming (Java, JDO, mysql, and xml), design, networking, and publicity. If you want to contribute information to this site, click the register link at the top of the page, and start contributing.Contact Us